Recording Place of Origin/Heimatort, Swiss Merceneries and Migrant Ships

Question

Working on increasing the 'Swiss presence' on WikiTree, I am looking for anyone's thoughts on how best to record a person's place of origin as well as Swiss mercenaries and migrants. 

Place of Origin/Heimatort: The place of origin determines Swiss citizenship. It also means that family units were recorded both, in the place of residence as well as the place of origin. This can be very useful for researchers because both sets of records may hold different clues or bits of information. Maybe a Sticker would be appropriate? A sub-category under each place might also serve to categorize profiles.

Swiss Mercenaries: Many signed up to serve in Swiss regiments fighting for foreign powers in Europe during local recruitment drives. If they died in foreign service, they were often noted in the local church register. The information varies but some entries are very specific where and under whom the deceased person served. Again, maybe a sub-category under each location or maybe it would be better for Swiss Mercenaries to have their own category?

Swiss Migrants: Obviously not only a Swiss issue ... They often traveled and settled together in foreign lands so it may be useful for researchers to record who traveled together on a particular ship. There are a lot of categories for migration so I am not sure if another category/sub-category for each ship carrying migrants would help or hinder research. Personally, I do look at who traveled together, because non-English names are often misspelled or transcribed incorrectly due to the language barrier at the port of departure/arrival.

Edit: Just found the category for migrant ships so the Swiss migrant point is mute :)

Answer 1

[[Miville-102|Pierre  (Miville) Miville dit Le Suisse (abt.1602-1669)]] was from Switzerland, some say he was a soldier who fought at La Rochelle before he married and came here, although I have yet to see evidence for the soldier part.  There are a few here and there who are of Swiss origin who came to the colony, he's one that comes to my mind immediately (ancestor)

Comments

Hi Danielle, wow that would be an early mercenary then. The mercenaries I have come across were in the 1700s. Mind you, most burial registers in my research only start in the early 1700s. One of them signed up to serve for the 'Dutch' but was sent by them to support the English at the battle of Culloden where he died. However, it is not clear if he died in battle or of other causes. Very fascinating ...

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries well, they were doing this in the middle ages, but of course burial records before the 1700s become more and more scarce as you go back in time.

Meanwhile, since the term confused me, went looking for Heimatort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_of_origin

Answer 2

I'm Swiss and I agree that Heimatorte absolutely should be recorded, if known. It makes research so much easier in Switzerland.

I don't know much about categories yet. I just added the Heimatort at the end of the biography, as in the profile of my greatgreatgrandfather https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/J%C3%B6rg-25 .

Comments

Thank you. I have been recording them in the text of the biography too but it would be nice to have a more visual way of quickly get that information. I have only just scratched the surface of what categories and WikiTree have to offer, so much to learn :)

Answer 3

Swiss mercenaries have been around a long time! Swiss mercenaries - Wikipedia

I have a number of ancestors who were involved with Bernese mercenary units in the 1600s - specifically the "Erlach Regiment". I think it would be very useful to be able to add this category, but wonder if the idea might be more broadly implemented to include ANY military service unit. Perhaps there are already such categorization schemes, which would simply need to be expanded to include military units organized in Switzerland and "hired out" to foreigen powers.

Please tag your question with "MILITARY" - I think that might be a good place to start.